Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet material take-in apparatus that takes in a sheet material, a sheet material conveying apparatus that conveys a sheet material, and an image reading apparatus and an image forming apparatus including a sheet material take-in apparatus and a sheet material conveying apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
According to Patent Documents 1 and 2, sheet material conveying apparatuses have been proposed in which a sheet bundle composed of multiple sheet materials is placed on a loading platform in a standing state in which the overlapping direction of the sheet materials is approximately horizontal, and in this state, the sheet materials are conveyed one by one on a conveyance path.
According to Patent Document 1, a sheet bundle placed on the loading platform is vibrated by the entirety of a bottom plate vibrating, whereby the end portions in the sheet material conveyance direction of the sheet bundle are aligned. Accordingly, paper supply failure, jamming after paper supply, oblique traveling of sheet materials, and the like are prevented.
According to Patent Document 2, it is proposed that the end portions of the sheet bundle are aligned by providing at least a cam-shaped rotating member of the sheet loading platform and causing the cam-shaped rotating member to rotate. Furthermore, according to Patent Document 2, it is proposed that a sheet material stacking amount is obtained by detecting the holding position of a pressure plate that presses the sheet bundle, and the operation time for document end alignment and the number of instances, speed, and amplitude of vibrating the vibration member are automatically set according to the sheet material stacking amount.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-223044    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-131290, paragraphs 0068 and 0072
The invention disclosed in Patent Document 2 is advantageous in that the burden on the user is lightened since the operation time for document end alignment is set automatically. However, if a sheet bundle is added during conveyance, various problems occur. The added sheet bundle has not yet been aligned. That means that there may be sideways or misaligned sheet materials in the sheet bundle. When these kinds of sheet materials are conveyed, the sheet materials are damaged due to jamming, multiple sheet materials are conveyed at the same time, and accurate reading of magnetic ink characters is impeded.
Note that there is a risk that the above-described problems will occur in a similar manner in the case where another sheet is added later to the sheet bundle on the loading platform, regardless of the orientation of the sheet bundle during take-in (e.g., upright placement, horizontal placement, and the like). Also, the present invention is not limited to the above-described background art.
It is a feature of the present invention to realize a stable feeding operation or conveying operation by aligning an added sheet bundle while lightening user labor regarding determining on the alignment condition and the subsequent processing also when a sheet bundle is added.